The county was initially administered by the Merseyside County Council but this was abolished in 1986, and so its boroughs are now effectively unitary authorities.
Despite the abolition of the county council some local services are still run on a county-wide basis, now administered by joint-boards of the five metropolitan boroughs, these include the:
Uniquely among English counties, it is traditional to express location within the Merseyside area by the pronoun on, thus "on Merseyside" as opposed to "in Merseyside" (after all, one would be "on the side of the Mersey" not "in" it).
However, both expressions are common in modern usage.
